Bertha-Irene of Sulzbach, first wife of Manuel I Comnenus

Lynda GarlandUniversity of New England, Australia

Andrew StoneUniversity of Western Australia

Background to the marriage

From the time of the Norman conquest in 1071 of Bari,
the last Byzantine possession in Italy, and Robert Guiscard's invasions
of Greece in the 1080s, the Normans had been a constant threat to the Byzantine
empire. As a result, the foreign policy of both John
II (1118-1143) and Manuel
I Comnenus (1143-1180) was motivated
by the desire to ally themselves with Germany in order to neutralise the
threat of the Normans, an alliance which was pursued until the Byzantine
defeat at Brindisi in 1156,[[1]]
when it was terminated by Frederick I Barbarossa for having outlived its
usefulness. In the circumstances, John
II (1118-1143) considered that a marriage
alliance with Germany would be prudent, and he fixed on his youngest son
Manuel
as the most suitable candidate for such an alliance, perhaps because of
his Latin sympathies:[[2]]
earlier John had considered marrying Manuel
to Constance, the only daughter of the prince of Antioch. She was, however,
quickly married to Raymond of Poitiers in 1136 to avoid Antioch coming
under Byzantine control.

Marriage negotiations between Byzantium and Germany
were begun in 1140 when John
II Comnenus approached Conrad III of
Germany (1138-1152) for an alliance against Roger II of Sicily (1101-1154)
and suggested that a suitable princess be found for his youngest son.[[3]] John had no particular
bride in mind, and Bertha is first specifically mentioned in a letter of
Conrad's to John,
dated 12 February 1142, in which Conrad offers a marriage to a sister of
his own wife, Gertrude.[[4]]
Conrad was clearly not so taken with the idea of an alliance as John,
and takes the opportunity to stress his own importance and rank, describing
himself as 'Dei gratia Romanorum
imperator augustus' while John
is
simply addressed as 'the emperor of Constantinople'. John's reply of April
of the same year makes clear that it is he who is in fact 'Iohannes
in Christo Deo fidelis rex porphirogenitus, sublimis, fortis, augustus,
Cominos et imperator Romanorum'.[[5]]
The match was agreed upon and Bertha was dispatched to Constantinople later
in 1142, arriving on 2 August to marry Manuel,
who was still at this point sevastocrator and the youngest of four
brothers; Bertha's dowry was to be Apulia and Calabria.[[6]] Johnseems to
have planned to create an appanage for Manuel
and
Bertha-Irene out of Coele Syria, Cilicia and Cyprus, before the death of
his two eldest sons necessitated a change of plan.

Such a marriage between East and West was not unknown:
the German emperor Otto II had been granted Theophano, niece of John I
Tzimisces (969-976), as his bride, and Romanus II, son and heir of Constantine
VII Porphyrogenitus, had been married when young to Bertha (Eudocia), the
illegitimate daughter of Hugo of Provence, king of Italy (927-947).[[7]]
After her death in 949 another alliance was negotiated with Hedwig of Bavaria,
niece of Otto the Great, though this did not in fact take place and Hedwig,
despite having learnt Greek, married Burchard II of Swabia in 954. It was,
however, unusual for a foreign alliance to be sought by the East -- it
was the West which highly prized Byzantine princesses -- and Liudprand
records the great displeasure felt in Germany when a marriage alliance
was refused by Nicephorus II Phocas (963-969).[[8]]
Maria of Alania (wife of Michael VII Ducas and Nicephorus III Botaniates)
had been the first foreign-born empress for several centuries, but the
situation changed with the Comneni, and John
II took as his wife Piroshka of Hungary
and set the fashion for foreign marriages with his four sons, importing,
it appears, a number of princesses as imperial brides.[[9]]

The situation changed with the death of
John's two eldest sons, Alexius and Andronicus
late in 1142, while John
was
to die himself in a hunting accident in Cilicia on 5 April 1143. Before
his death, he passed over the elder of his two surviving sons, Isaac, in
favour of Manuel,
the younger, and ensured that Manuel
was
acclaimed emperor by the army. The marriage alliance with Bertha may not
now have seemed grand enough for a ruling emperor, and did not in fact
take place until January 1146, though its importance was correspondingly
increased in the West. Manuel
negotiated with Conrad for an improved dowry, and in a communication in
1145 to Manuel,
now addressed as 'porphirogenito Comiano illustri et glorioso regi Graecorum',
Conrad urges on Manuel,
now 'his most beloved of friends', to take as his wife Bertha, titled Conrad's
most beloved daughter ('dilectissimam filiam nostram'), the sister of his
most noble wife. To demonstrate his enthusiasm for the marriage, Conrad
offered to furnish not just 500 soldiers but some 2,000 or 3,000 if needed.[[10]]
Finally late in 1145 an embassy under the direction of the eloquent Embrico,
Bishop of Würzburg, sealed the match and, after the intervening Second
Crusade, it was finally agreed at the Treaty of Thessalonica of 1148 that
the empress' dowry should consist of southern Italy.[[11]]
To strengthen the alliance it was also agreed in 1148 that Manuel's
niece Theodora, daughter of his late brother Andronicus, be married to
Conrad's half-brother, Heinrich Jasomirgott, later Duke of Austria.[[12]]

Conrad was not, at the time of the marriage negotiations,
considering personal involvement in the Second Crusade: it was not until
December 1145 that Pope Eugenius issued his papal bull 'Quantum praedecessores'
addressed to Louis VII, and not until Christmas 1146 that Conrad himself,
at the urging of St Bernard of Clairvaux, took the cross at Speyer. Nevertheless
news of the fall of Edessa to Zengi sent to the pope by Melisende of Jerusalem
may have fanned interest in the East and been a factor in making the marriage
appear even more relevant.

Bertha's family

It is not clear what Bertha's age was at the time
of her engagement and marriage. She was one of the six children and five
daughters of Berenger II of Sulzbach, who was married first to Adelheid
of Lechsgemünd (d. 1112) and then to Adelheid of Diessen (d. 1126).
Gertrude, born c. 1110, appears to have been the eldest of the family and
she married Conrad III in 1135, while Berenger's only son Gebhard was born
c. 1114. Bertha was apparently Berenger's second child, which would put
her birth between 1111 and 1113: of her younger sisters Adelheid, Liudgard
and Mathilde, Liudgard was married in 1139. It would not be surprising
therefore if Bertha was several years older than Manuel,
who was born on 28 November 1118, and more than 30 years of age at the
time of their marriage in 1146, unusually old for an imperial bride, for
they were generally married at the age of thirteen or fourteen years. Irene
Ducaena was apparently twelve years of age when she married Alexius
(I) Comnenus, and it was customary for
foreign brides to be brought to Constantinople at a very young age to enable
them to be educated in Greek and the intricacies of court ceremonial. This
may have been a factor in the delay in the marriage, as Bertha's lack of
acquaintance with Byzantine protocol and inability to communicate in Greek
would have been a matter of grave concern at court.

The wedding

The wedding only took place in January 1146 (nearly
three years after Manuel's
accession in April 1143), following the arrival in Constantinople of the
embassy led by Embrico, bishop of Würzburg.[[13]]
The patriarch Michael II Curcuras presided over Bertha's marriage and coronation
and at her baptism and marriage in the Orthodox church Bertha took the
name Irene, no doubt in honour of her predecessors Irene Ducaena (wife
of Alexius
I Comnenus), and Piroshka-Irene of Hungary,
her new husband's mother, who had married John
II Comnenus in 1104. The alliance was
celebrated in the ceremonial verse of the court poet Prodromus, who, in
a stereotypical poem to celebrate Bertha's arrival, commanded New Rome
now to rejoice at its headship over Old Rome through this union of Bertha
and Manuel;
he mentions her family and western origins, specifically including 'the
distinguished Conrad', and describes Bertha as the best of women and of
outstanding beauty, congratulating her on her good fortune in being brought
like a vine by the emperor to be transplanted into such a glorious and
luxurious setting in the imperial gardens. Prodromus' verses, not surprisingly,
dwell far more upon the rank and nobility of Manuel
than on Bertha and her lineage. Elsewhere, in a poem by an anonymous author
celebrating a dedication of a golden tablet by the empress, Bertha's marriage
to Manuel
is similarly described as the union of Old and New Rome, and her birth,
including her descent from 'Julius Caesar', is suitably lauded.[[14]]
Kazhdan notes that by the twelfth century the Byzantines considered the
Latin West as a unified entity, and Choniates considers Bertha, though
he knows her to be a German, as a Latin by race.[[15]]
Cinnamus, a eulogist in all to do with Manuel
and
his reign, simply describes her descent by the phrase 'a girl related to
kings'.[[16]]

Bertha-Irene's character

When Bertha arrived in Constantinople in 1142, she
was greeted, as was customary, by the ladies of the imperial family. Among
them was the Russian-born sevastocratorissa who was the wife of
Alexius, John's
eldest son, clad in dark purple with gold embroidery. In the absence of
John's
wife Piroshka who had died, probably in 1134, this princess no doubt headed
the formal welcoming committee. Owing to the sombre colour of her dress,
Bertha inquired who the nun in the party was who was speaking magnificently,
an enquiry which the Byzantines interpreted as boding ill for the marriage,
especially as Alexius was to die within the year.[[17]]
That the remark is recorded may be evidence of a perception that Bertha's
normal approach to the sophistication and intricacies of Byzantine court
life could be blunt and even tactless.

Choniates and Cinnamus both avoid giving a detailed
physical description of Bertha, emphasising that she was primarily concerned
with her inner beauty and the condition of her soul, and commenting on
her more solid virtues -- propriety, piety, prudence and philanthropy.[[18]]
Basil of Ochrid, who composed Bertha's funeral eulogy, also comments on
her humility, modesty, philanthropy and piety and supplies us with an image
of the empress abasing herself before the deacons on the occasion of the
Eucharist.[[19]]
According to Choniates it is clear that her neglect of her appearance and
her refusal to use make-up set her aside from other empresses and imperial
women. She scorned the use of 'face powder, eye liner, and eye-shadow underneath
the eye, and rouge instead of nature's flush, and, ascribing such aids
to silly women, she was adorned by the virtues to which she was devoted.'[[20]]
This is supported by Basil of Ochrid, who states that women in general
were thought to have too great a predilection for bedecking themselves
in unsuitable finery to enhance their charms, and confirms the historians'
account of Bertha's disinterest in adornments and of her inner virtue which
far outweighed her external magnificence.[[21]]
Choniates continues by adding that 'she had the natural [ie, racial] trait
of being unbending and opinionated. Consequently, the emperor was not very
attentive to her....'.[[22]]
Westerners were unpopular in Byzantium, especially during the reigns of
Manuel
and Andronicus
I Comnenus,[[23]]
and obviously her racial background as a German entitled her to the criticism
of inflexibility and arrogance. Significantly, in his funeral oration for
her, Basil of Ochrid specifically states that Bertha did not possess the
arrogance and superciliousness typical of westerners, especially Germans
-- a pointer to a general distrust of western empresses and dislike of
westerners in general: obviously even as empress Bertha still appeared
German and was thought by Choniates to retain typically 'German' pride,
which Basil is at pains to deny or remove.[[24]]

The picture jointly presented by John Cinnamus, Nicetas
Choniates and Basil of Ochrid suggests that the empress was not particularly
beautiful, was very pious, and spurned cosmeticsand other signs
of imperial magnificence. Consequently Manuel
soon
began to be openly unfaithful to her. Bertha of course retained all the
honours of court life, but found herself set aside in favour of numerous
mistresses. In addition, it seems probable that she was not considered
to be properly fulfilling her role as empress, who was expected to act
alongside the emperor as the focal point of imperial ceremonial, and was
a vital pivot for ceremonies involving the women of the court.[[25]]

Bertha and Manuel

Not unnaturally the funeral oration, written by Basil
of Ochrid, presents the marriage in the most flattering and eulogistic
of terms, and describes the imperial couple as united in mutual affection
and commitment, with Manuel,
and indeed the entire empire, being totally inconsolable at the loss of
such a lady.[[26]]
Moreover, after Manuel's
recovery
from an illness, Bertha made a dedication of a golden dove to the Theotokos
(Mother of God), while in the accompanying poem the poet Prodromus lauds
her as 'Queen of all New Rome' and portrays her as asking for the holy
martyrs as Manuel's
fellow-warriors.[[27]]
Despite such conventional depictions of a royal marriage, however, physical
beauty was considered an essential quality in empresses,[[28]]
and Bertha's lack of interest in her appearance and, possibly, her mature
age, in reality led to her being neglected by her new husband: 'Consequently,
the emperor was not very attentive to her, but she shared in the honors,
bodyguard, and remaining imperial splendours; in matters of the bed, however,
she was wronged'.[[29]]
She seems to have withdrawn from the glare of the court and devoted herself
to good works and the upbringing of her daughter Maria, the heir to the
throne, who was probably born in March 1152.[[30]]

Manuel
had
a number of mistresses, even at the end of his life,[[31]]
and to make the situation even more difficult for the new empress Manuel's
chief mistress was the haughty and extravagant Theodora, Manuel's
own niece, who was so arrogant in her position that she was accused by
Choniates of disdainful conceit, of insisting that the palace be swept
clean before she would even enter it, and of having her own court (a rival
one to that of the empress) and a retinue as resplendent as that of Bertha.[[32]]
Theodora is reported actually to have tried to stab a rival of whom she
was jealous, and her illegitimate son, Alexius, was appointed Caesar and
sevastocrator.
This son, and 'the others who followed', accounted for incredibly large
sums of money.[[33]]
According to Choniates, there was a great resemblance between Alexius and
his father in both physique and character, which implies that his parentage
was widely known.[[34]]
In view of the fact that passions could obviously ride high at court, it
is perhaps significant that an anonymous poet invoked the help of the prophet
Daniel against enemies of the empress, for Bertha must have had her detractors
and critics, even within the imperial family, and her position was not
secure.[[35]]

Manuel
enjoyed jousting on the western model,[[36]]
and is said by Cinnamus to have engaged in a show of gratuitous heroics
in 1146 in a campaign against Iconium, shortly after his wedding, to impress
his new bride.[[37]]
Bertha may have been pleased to support his heroic image as a new 'Digenis
Acrites', the hero of Byzantine epic-romance, as Manuel
is titled by at least one court-poet,[[38]]
for Cinnamus describes her as publicly supporting her husband's heroic
and chivalrous image 'in full senate':[[39]]

'Therefore, the lady from among the Germans who had
married him, once said in full senate that she drew her descent from a
great and warlike race but out of all of them she had never heard of any
who boasted so many feats in a single year.'

While the circumstances of Bertha's address to the
senate are not entirely clear, the episode implies that she was present
and publicly supported the emperor on official occasions, including presumably
the reception of foreign envoys, and did not merely preside over the empress'
alternative court. Furthermore, she appears to have played a prominent
role in government in Manuel's
frequent absences. It was to her that Andronicus
Comnenus' conspiracy to assassinate Manuel
was reported in 1154, while she was the one in authority told of the supposed
escape from prison of Andronicus
in 1158, and the measures to defend the city and imperial decrees calling
for an all-out search may have been directed by her.[[40]]
According to the continuation of Otto's Gesta Friderici by Rahewin,
Bertha was also the person informed about the conspiracy of the canicleius
(emperor's private secretary) Theodore Styppiotes against Manuel
in 1159; she swiftly reported this to Manuel
in Cilicia who had Styppiotes blinded and his tongue pierced.[[41]]
Her command of wealth suited to her rank is shown not merely by the philanthropy
with which she is credited by all sources, but also by her magnificent
gifts to members of her family, such as Conrad's son, Frederick duke of
Swabia, her own nephew, in 1157.[[42]]

She was an important mediator between Manuel
and Conrad during Conrad's visits to Constantinople during the course of
the Second Crusade (1146-48), for relations between Germans and Byzantines
were not always friendly, especially prior to the Germans' arrival, and
Conrad certainly corresponded with her: the letters are recorded by Wibald
of Stavelot, regent during the Second Crusade and Frederick I's ambassador
to Manuel.[[43]]
Odo of Deuil dwells in depth on the arrogance of both Manuel
and Conrad and contrasts their haughty demeanour, in their stubborn refusal
to lose face and meet the other on his own ground, with the majestic humility
of the French king Louis, his patron.[[44]]
But amicable relations between Conrad and Manuel
were maintained: Manuel,
and of course Bertha, helped Conrad to recuperate after his return to Constantinople
following the disastrous defeat at Dorylaeum, and he was entertained in
the winter of 1147/48 with all kinds of amusements, including receptions,
horse-races, and other spectacles.[[45]]
Conrad returned to Palestine furnished with Byzantine funds and transport,
and Conrad and Manuel
were to meet again at Thessalonica late in 1148,[[46]]
when a final agreement was made over Bertha's dowry and the two leaders
sealed a treaty against Roger II of Sicily, who had taken advantage of
Byzantium's preoccupation with the crusade to annex Corcyra and attack
Corinth.[[47]]

Bertha also played an important part in the reception
of the leader of the French crusade contingent, Louis VII of France, who
was accompanied by his queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eleanor seems to have
been deliberately cut out of Odo of Deuil's narrative as a result of her
divorce from Louis VII and remarriage to Henry II Plantagenet, and because
of the scandalous behaviour in which she supposedly indulged with her uncle,
Raymond of Poitiers, during her stay in Antioch; William of Tyre too is
critical of her behaviour as 'one of those silly women'. Nevertheless from
one reference in Odo's account which has not been erased, we hear of Eleanor
receiving frequent letters from the Empress Bertha, which implies that
she took a very active role in communicating with and entertaining the
western monarchs.[[48]]

Bertha-Irene's children

Manuel
felt
suspicious of his brother Isaac's association with the patriarch Cosmas
in 1147. This man had detractors, despite his piety and humility, and in
the end his enemies secured his expulsion from the patriarchal throne.
Cosmas, upon this, was said to have cursed the empress Bertha-Irene's womb.
It was believed that this was why Bertha was to bear only two daughters,
Maria Porphyrogenita, who was born in 1152,[[49]]
and Anna who died at the age of four years, apparently before Bertha's
own decease.[[50]]
Needless to say, since there was no male heir from Bertha, the question
of Maria's marriage was of great importance to Manuel,
and was not decided upon until well after Bertha's death.

Bertha's intellectual pursuits

An intellectual, or at least one who wished to be
considered so, Bertha was interested in Greek culture and liked to appear
an enthusiastic patron of demotic literature. She commissioned works such
as John Tzetzes' Allegories of the Iliad (he had also dedicated
his Chiliades to her), a summary of the Iliad in simple Greek
verse to enable her to become acquainted with the work of Homer. She even
seems to have suggested the verse form to the poet, though without giving
precise instructions for the content. Tzetzes addressed the work to her
as 'the most powerful and "Homeric" lady Irene of Germany' and describes
her as the moon, wishing to illumine Homer.[[51]]
The work was incomplete on her death because of disagreements over Tzetzes'
rates of pay. She had promised him four gold coins a folio, but Tzetzes
felt he was not suitably recompensed by the empress' steward Megalonas
for his hard work as he had filled the folios with especially small hand-writing;
after a violent dispute Tzetzes was refused payment and he stopped work.[[52]]

In this patronage of literature, Bertha may well
have been following the example of her sister-in-law, Irene the sevastocratorissa,
widow of Manuel's
brother Andronicus, who was patron of numerous court poets.[[53]]
It is also possible that she might have been inspired by her contact with
Eleanor of Aquitaine who was herself a noted patron of romances and chronicles
in verse, although it may have been Eleanor who was possibly inspired by
her contact with Constantinople and the East to introduce greater refinement
into the courts of Western Europe in imitation of Byzantine cultural sophistication.

Bertha-Irene's death

Bertha died suddenly of a fever at Loggoi outside
Constantinople in 1158, and was buried in the church of the Pantocrator,
built by John
II, where Manuel
too was to be buried at his death in 1180.[[54]]
Despite his unfaithfulness during the marriage,
Manuel lamented bitterly at her death,
'looking upon her demise as if a limb had been torn from his body, and
his lamentation was like the roar of a lion'; Basil of Ochrid reports that
even the Turks paid homage to the deceased empress.[[55]]Manuel
was of course concerned to remarry as soon as possible, if for no other
reason than the immediate necessity of having a son and heir. An embassy
was sent to the crusader states to enquire about a new bride, and after
negotiations for an alliance with Melisende of Tripoli had failed, Manuel
married Mary
of Antioch, one of the daughters of Raymond
of Poitiers and Constance of Antioch, in St Sophia on Christmas Day 1161.
In 1165/66 he fixed the succession on his daughter Maria and her fianceé
Béla of Hungary in default of a legitimate male heir.[[56]]

Despite her twelve years as empress of Byzantium,
Bertha leaves very little impression in the sources, compared, for example,
with her successor Mary
of Antioch. While Bertha attempted in
her overt display of Orthodox piety and patronage of court poets to live
up to the stereotype expected of empress, clearly she was unable to maintain
the traditional 'glittering image' of resplendent magnificence: as such
she was a disappointment at court. However, her life was not without influence.
She played a significant role in improving relations between Conrad and
Manuel and thus facilitating the critically important alliance between
Byzantium and Germany, as well as in encouraging further alliances between
the German royal house and Byzantine princesses;[[57]]
furthermore, it is hard to believe that she did not play some part in the
upbringing and attitudes of her daughter Maria Porphyrogenita, who also
failed to adapt completely to the role considered suitable for imperial
women, and ended up involving herself in a civil war against her step-mother
Mary
and Mary's
government. What Bertha was, however, unable to do was to improve the perception
of westerners in Byzantium, and this was to lead eventually to a massacre
under Andronicus
I Comnenus and the rapid deterioration
of East-West relations.

[[2]]Choniates, Historia,
204-5. For William of Tyre's favourable picture of the pro-Latin Manuel
as 'a great-souled man of incomparable energy', see History of Deeds
Done Beyond the Sea, 22.10 (trans. Babcock and Krey,2.461).

[[15]]Choniates, Historia,
53-4; A. Kazhdan, 'Latins and Franks in Byzantium: Perception and Reality
from the Eleventh to the Twelfth Century' in The
Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World,
ed. A.E. Laiou and R.P. Mottahedeh (Washington; Dumbarton Oaks, 2001),
86-7.

[[30]]Choniates, Historia,
170--1 (trans. Magoulias, O
City of Byzantium, 97); Cinnamus, Epitome,
3.11; William of Tyre, A History
of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, 22.4: William
himself was present at the festivities. For the date of Maria's birth,
see Magdalino, The Empire
of Manuel Komnenos, 198, 243 (1152).

[[31]]Choniates, Historia,
220; for Manuel's many affairs, see esp. Choniates 54 and 204. Varzos 1.446,
473-6 discusses the identity of two women mentioned but unnamed by Choniates;
see also L. Garland, 'How Different, How Very Different from the Home Life
of Our Own Dear Queen: Sexual Morality at the Late Byzantine Court, with
Especial Reference to the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,'Byzantine
Studies / Études Byzantines, new series
1-2, (1995-1996), 1-62, esp. 39-42.

[[32]]Choniates, Historia,
204. This Theodora is generally taken to be the daughter of Manuel's youngest
sister Eudocia and Theodore Vatatzes (Varzos, Genealogia,
1.446), but Choniates clearly calls her Manuel's brother's daughter (Historia,
104).

[[48]]Odo of Deuil, De
Profectione Ludovici VII, 56: 'Interdum
imperatrix reginae scribebat ...'; William
of Tyre, 16.27: '... quae
una erat de fatuis mulieribus'. Choniates,
Historia,
60 is presumably referrring to Eleanor and her entourage when he speaks
of women in masculine garb outside Constantinople, who rode 'unashamedly'
astride, including one known popularly as 'Goldfoot'.

[[49]]Cinnamus, Epitome,
3.11, ed. Meineke, 118.

[[50]]Cinnamus, Epitome,
5.1, ed. Meineke, 202; William of Tyre's account of Manuel's letter to
Baldwin III on Bertha's death makes mention of one surviving daughter (18.30).